Unofficial Writing
The Terms Canon & Fanon Canon is a slang word that means official when used to refer to fictional works such as anime, manga and fanfictions among other things. By official, I mean that it was written by the original owner or was given the okay to be apart of the their work by said author. On the flip side, fanon coming from the word fan is works such as fanfictions and role plays that are derived from a cannon work they are a fan of thus, it is not typically canon. Continuity is another word that can be used in the place of fanon as well as fanfictions as long as it picks off where cannon leaves off. Godmod Godmod, also known as godmode and godmodding is the act of a player taking control of another character that is not theirs to control, such as a character owned or controlled by another person. This is often done to win roleplaying battles and more however, very few experienced roleplayers and roleplaying sites are willing to tolerate it as it is considered a taboo. This is because it gives the person an unfair advantage in battles, debates, arguments and haggling as well as in countless other things. Not only that, it is unfair to the owner of the character and other players if someone can play god and do whatever they want, hence the ban. The only time this taboo isn't a taboo is when the person is given permission to control a character they don't own, then it's not really godmodding. Powerplaying Unlike many other terms, powerplaying is not an obvious term by it's name however, it is easy to figure out since if you think about it, it's easy to conclude that powerplaying is defined as giving a character an insane amount of power to make yourself invinsible however, invinsible is just a word and everyone always has a weakness of some sort, not always in their abilities but in their personality or choose of armour that can lead to their defeat. Powerplaying is very much frowned upon as such characters ruin the fun of the game since most are not experienced enough at roleplaying to know how to beat them. Autohitting As the name suggests, autohitting is when a character is hit by an attack without a chance to retailiate, another taboo. Of course, while opponents should typically have a chance to dodge or otherwise counter, there are some cases in which it isn't possible such as when the enemy is too big to move fast enough to make any sort of counter or dodge effort. Another example is if an enemy is moving too fast for the person to percieve thus, they would be unable to counter it or dodge. Autokilling Probably derived from autohitting, autokilling is when a character is killed by another person or beast or otherwise killed without giving the player who owns the character the chance to escape death. Similarly to autohitting, if the person is not able to percieve the attack due to the attack's high speed or are too slow to do anything about it, then the character will likely though not always die. Of course, characters who have already sustained serious injuries who are hit by something that in their peak condition would prove to be fatal or serious injuries typically cannot be saved. But more about this in another part of the guide. IC An abbrieviation for in character, this means that the player is pretending to be the character they control thus, any knowledge they, the player knows that the character does not doesn't exist to them as they are limited to what the character knows and can percieve. Timeskip A rather obvious one, this is when a period of time such as when a school going character is walking home from school. This is done when nothing particularly interesting or otherwise relavant to the development of the story takes place however, it can also be used to simple skip to a place and point of time without having to write the inbetween. When such things accrue, no turns are taken for that period of time and in cases of when it's a role play played on a thread on a forum, only the owner of said thread is allowed to post for that period but typically, these sections are bypassed altogether and the participants focus on the point in time after the timeskip, eventually, if relavant going back and telling readers what happened during the timeskip period. NPC Standing for non player characters, these are also referred to as artificial intelligence which have been nicknamed AI. These characters may or may not have detailed information about them or any information at all however, they are not typically main characters, just background or main support characters and are owned by a game master such as the owner of the thread if played on a forums and his or her appointed game masters or game masters appointed through other means depending on the method of roleplaying. Faction The origins of this term actually predates roleplaying by countless centuries and as most know, it means two or more sides that don't generally agree with each other and often fight. Since this is rather self explanatory, there is nothing more that needs to be said. Fandom One of the names for fanon creations, fandom is an existing setting or universe in which writters may create their role plays. Since this is rather self explanatory, there is nothing more that needs to be said. Furrie Furrie, also known as furry is an animal with Human clothing, sentience who typically walks upright however, their behavior is usually animal or a mimic of Human behavior. Another type is an animal that has the sentience and thought processes of a Human among other things but behaves and appears as their feral counterparts. Game Master Mostly used in forum roleplaying, it is typically the person who owns the role play thus, they rune the role play as well as control the plot, NPC, directs player characters and enforces the rules, all of which can be done individually or in any number of combinations. Another type of game master is a person who was appointed either by the RP's owner in the case of forum roleplaying with the exception of guilds who can do one or more of the things the owner can, depending on what they are told they are allowed to do but it can also be someone who was appointed by the guild, website, etc to do one or more of those things for a single or multiple role plays. Storyteller is another name for this. Literate Also known as literacy, it is in character posts consisting of at least a few good sized paragraphs with good grammar and spelling. This may also refer to someone's capability to write posts consisting of upwards of 500-700 words, although exact parameters differ between role players and roleplaying sites. Most good roleplayers are able to do long, well written paragraphs or multiple paragraphs most of the time, the amount depending on many variable factors. Metagaming One of the big taboos, characters involved in metagaming possesses information that they didn't learn through roleplaying thus, it doesn't reflect their range of information, rather it relies on information gained by the character's owner in an out of character setting such as reading posts, discussion and research among other things that the character didn't or cannot do thus, they cannot legimently possess this information. Metagaming can also refer to the act of or the habit of writting such posts. Trivia *